With environmental sustainability a key focus for the future the need for cleaner forms of power generation have resulted in a number of gas exploration projects in Australia (Department of Infrastructure and Planning, 2008). With Australia having potentially vast untapped reserves of coal seam methane beds it must be asked whether there are any negative impacts associated with coal seam methane (CSM) before the energy industry moves into a new technology.
Coalification, the geologic process that progressively converts plant material to coal, generates large quantities of natural gas, which are subsequently stored in the coal seams. The increased pressures from water in the coal seams force the natural gas to adsorb to the coal. The natural gas consists of approximately 96 percent methane, 3.5 percent nitrogen, and trace amounts of carbon dioxide (U.S. EPA, 2004a). Also known as Coal bed methane (CBM), CSG is released by removing water from the stratum which reduces the pressure on the coal seam (Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation QLD, 2012).
Over the past 15 years and despite the recent global economic downturn the CSG industry has continued to grow rapidly in both development and exploration. The Queensland’s coal seam gas overview shows this clearly with the annual number of wells drilled has increased from 10 in the early 1990s to nearly 600 in 2011 (Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation QLD, 2012).
As a result of this rapid growth it is necessary to evaluate the current CSG industry to establish and minimise the current and future environmental impacts of CSG mining.
Literature Review
Many studies have been conducted into the environmental impacts of downhole ...
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The Powder River Basin is located in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming. According to Luppens et al. (2008), the Powder River Basin is approximately 22,000 square miles in area. The basin itself trends in a north-to-north west direction. The eastern side of the basin dips gently westward, whereas the western side dips much more steeply towards the east. This forms an asymmetrical syncline with the synclinal axis lying closer to the western margin of the basin (USGS, 2013). The Powder River Basin is structurally separated from other basins by Laramide style tectonic landforms, where large portions of Archean basement rock were thrust upwards during the late Cretaceous and Paleocene (Flores, 2004). In Wyoming the Powder River Basin is surrounded by the Bighorn Mountains to the west, the Black Hills to the East, and the Laramie Mountains, Casper Arch, And Hartville Uplift to the South. To the north, in the Montana portion of the Powder River Basin, the Miles City Arch separates the basin from the Williston Basin in North Dakota. The coal beds that were deposited in the basin are mainly sub-bituminous but can also be lignite in rank and range from Cretaceous to Eocene in age. There are four formations that contain coal beds in the Powder River Basin and include the Mesaverde Formation, the Lance Formation, the Fort Union Formation, and the Wasatch Formation. Each of these formations contains several different coal ...
Removal of the mountaintops causes environmental impacts from blasting. The blasting has caused rocks to be deposited into valleys on the hillsides, burying almost 2,000 miles of streams which feed the Mississippi River. Slurry, the residue which is used to clean the coal can wash into groundwater and may contain arsenic, lead, manganese, iron, sodium, strontium, and sulfate. A recent research study is beginning to link these environmental impacts to the grave health concerns in the Appalachian communities. During most of the Mountaintop removal mining’s history coal industries have been able to obtain permits easily to operate, but once under the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) those permits now take more time to obtain. The permit process requires all applications to be reviewed before being given out to coal
Fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, are Carbon rich compounds, the combustion of which produces Carbon Dioxide, a pollutant and a greenhouse gas. A large amount of energy is released during this process, which is why the pollutants off products are tolerated. This process occurs constantly throughout the world, in power stations, vehicles and cooking ovens, leading to an immense volume of CO2 being released every second, 50% of which is absorbed by oceans (Oce...
In today's global economy, energy is one of the most crucial and sought after commodities. Who supplies it and how much they supply determines how much influence they have over other countries as well as the global economy. This is why hydraulic fracturing is currently such an important and controversial topic in the United States. Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as "fracking" or hydrofracturing, is the process of using pressurized liquids to fracture rocks and release hydrocarbons such as shale gas, which burns more efficiently than coal. This booming process of energy production provides a much needed economic boost, creating jobs and providing gas energy for Americans. The efficiently burning shale gas reduces carbon emission from electricity production plants, reducing carbon footprints on the environment. However, the process of hydraulic fracturing uses millions of gallons of pressurized liquid, which contains toxic chemicals, and some of this water is left over undealt with. The air near fracking sites is often also polluted and unsafe for nearby community residents. Injecting millions of gallons of water laced with toxic chemicals into the rock thousands of feet deep can cause earthquakes, causing a safety hazards for all nearby areas. Hydraulic Fracturing makes rare natural gases easily attainable, boosting the economy and reducing carbon emissions. However, the negative side effects such as contaminated water and air, make hydraulic fracturing a process that may not be worth the benefits.
"The Toll from Coal." Catf.us. Clean Air Task Force, Sept. 2010. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
The main thing in natural gas is methane. Millions of years ago, decaying remains of
Ever since the process of hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—made its entrance to the oil industry, issues and problems surrounding the process have become a common occurrence. Fracking is the controversial process of horizontal drilling (see fig. 1), where millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals are pumped deep into an oil well to extract natural gas from the earth’s crust (Ehrenberg 20). This practice has even been banned in some places (see fig. 1). The methane that comes out of the earth and the water used—called fracking fluid—has the potential to cause problems with local ground water supplies. Whether or not fracking is the cause of these problems, concern should be observed during the fracking process to reduce the chances of water contamination among residential areas.
The emission of carbon dioxide has contributed to 80% to the heating of the earth atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is produced due the burning of fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal and oil. The burning of fossil fuel is very important in our society today, because it is used for cooking, used to produce electricity, for heating, for cooling and also for transportation. The industrialization has led to the use of fossil fuel for running machines and driving cars. The building of fossil fuel contributes towards 80-90% of the carbon dioxide we find in our atmosphere today. When the ecosystems are altered and vegetation is either burned or took out, the carbon stored in them is relinquished to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (What causes global climate change, 2005). Methane is another gas being produced in the process which all have served to increase the greenhouse effect in our atmosphere. Methane is produced from the cultivation of rice, from the burning of coal and from cattle, it has increased by 145% due to human
Fracking has become a highly controversial and publicized topic due to rising concerns and growing analysis into the mutual benefits of hydraulic fracturing to retrieve natural gas and oil reserves. With concerns of water pollution, mismanagement of toxic waste and irreversible
Numerous reports have been given on the dangerous affects of hydraulic fracturing. One such affect that has been noticed is that drinking water wells near the fracturing sites have been contaminated. During the hydro-fracking process, injected fluids that help to break and keep open the rock bed where the natural gas is kept, have “been known to travel three thousand feet from the well (Goldman).” This fluid could have the potential to enter and contaminate any water well for homes around hydraulic fracturing sites. This incident is one of the major problems that people want to figure out and know about before they allow a fracturing site by them. It has been the most feared outcome of having a fracking site nearby, and it is highly appropriate. One site in Wyoming had this happen, “…in August, EPA reported that eleven of thirty-nine drinking-water wells near a Wyoming hydraulic fracturing operation were contaminated with chemicals used in the fracturing process (Hobson EPA).” In Pennsylvania, another such case occurred, “There have already been severe pollution cases in Pennsylvania, mo...
Coal has a very negative impact on the environment, one of the main impacts on the environment is the actual process of extracting the coal from the ground. The two ways that coal is mined, underground and surface, both have different effects on the environment. The first way that coal is mined is by digging tunnels and creating mineshafts underground and then removing the coal from th...
Humans use more and more energy each year and currently Australia depends heavily on coal, a finite resource. The energy crisis is a big concern for the world as countries begin to research alternative and new energy sources. Development of an energy source that is abundant and environmentalists friendly is essential for economic development and sustainability. The recent research into the use of methane from methane clathrates highlights this as a potential future energy source around the world. However, our group strongly suggests that Australia does not investigate methane clathrate as a source of energy in Australia due to its extensive disadvantages.
Natural gas has as of late risen as a generally clean vital source that offers the open door for various areas around the globe to decrease their dependence on energy imports. It can likewise serve as a transition fuel that will consider the movement from coal to renewable energy assets while serving to diminish the discharges of CO2, criteria poisons, and mercury by the power sector. Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling make the extraction of firmly bound characteristic gas from shale developments monetarily practical. Yet these advancements are not free from ecological dangers, particularly those identified with territorial water quality, for example, gas relocation, contaminant transport through affected and naturally
When the water comes into contact with the pyrite, the chemical reactions that take place causes the water to increase in pH which will dissolve heavy metals which stay in solution. However, when the pH levels reach a certain stage, the iron can then precipitate out, coating sediments with the characteristic yellow, red or orange colourings (D.E.P. 2, 2002; U.S.G.S.; U.S.E.P.A., 2002). The rate that A.M.D. advances is also influenced by the presence of certain bacteria (Doyle; U.S.G.S). A.M.D that has dissolved heavy metals such as copper, lead and mercury can contaminate ground and surface water. Especially at risk are mines that are located above the water table (Keller, 2000; D.E.P. 2, 2002). The sources of water that get polluted can be surface water that permeates into the mine, shallow ground water flowing through the mine or any water that comes into contact with the waste tailings produced by mines.
Coil, D., McKittrick, E., and Higman, B. (2010, December 16). Acid Mine Drainage. Ground Truth Trekking. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/MetalsMining/AcidMineDrainage.html